Modern Times

I was never much taken with Charlie Chaplin, too cute, I preferred the comparative austerity of Buster Keaton. But a couple of days ago I came across this picture. It is the last shot of Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936). At first glance it seems merely generic – hero and heroine walk off into the sunset and their future. Also Chaplin is in his standard tramp gear so one tends to think ‘Charlie Chaplin’ and move on. Nevertheless, I was transfixed. Declining towards the vanishing point, there are telegraph poles on one side and palm trees on the other. In the distance, pale hills recede. The sun is low, the shadows are long and the two figures are little more than silhouettes. The raking light also shows up the odd roughness of the roadway. It is still generic, but beautifully so. But what really lifts the shot is the way the girl (Paulette Goddard) is dressed – big disc hat, tight suit or dress and heels. This is obviously all wrong. She is not likely to get far. She is too well dressed both for her tramp boyfriend and for the journey. The discontinuity is surreal and anticipates those shots in neo-realist Italian movies of high-heeled divas on dusty road or the group marching aimlessly down an anonymous road in Bunuel’s Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. The picture has become generic but not in the way it seems at first glance. I must give Chaplin another look.
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5 thoughts on “Modern Times

  1. noreply@blogger.com'
    August 21, 2010 at 17:15

    Marvellous. I wonder how such movies would end if nobody had ever thought of the device of Walking Into The Sunset? It's such a clever way of conveying a lot of things, when you come to think about it.

    (I confess I struggle with Chaplin.)

  2. noreply@blogger.com'
    Simon Ash
    August 21, 2010 at 18:45

    I absolutely adored Chaplin when I was a child, back when they used to show his short films along with Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy on the BBC in the school holidays. I still find Laurel and Hardy funny and Keaton impresses me for his audacity but much of Chaplin's sentimentality gives me diabetes these days.

  3. noreply@blogger.com'
    Vern
    August 21, 2010 at 20:05

    The end of Modern Times is great, the very definition of bittersweet. Many times I have pondered the moment when Chaplin 'draws' a smile on his face and Goddard's. Great stuff, saw it in Russia on the 120th anniversary of his birth and it sparked off a mini-Chaplin mania for me. City Lights, the Circus, MT & bits of Limelight are all worth anybody's time.

  4. noreply@blogger.com'
    August 23, 2010 at 08:22

    Don't look back in hindsight. Poor old charlie always get an undeserved drubbing. Nevetheless, it's not very gentlemanly to walk your lady friend into the sun.

  5. info@shopcurious.com'
    August 23, 2010 at 19:59

    A new suit would have made Chaplin a totally different character – perhaps less of a cowboy…

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